Talk:Repression of science in the Soviet Union

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update[edit]

The reason I removed the line that claimed that Art and literature was under strict ideologically restriction from the beginning of the Soviet Union, is that it seems to contradict with the information in this article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_of_the_Soviet_Union (The Lenin Years) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.57.162.47 (talk) 22:16, 9 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

From Soviet Brief Phylosophical Dictionary, 1954[edit]

According to the laws of the Soviet Union, all works published before May 27, 1973 were not protected by copyright and were thus in the public domain.

CYBERNETICS (от др. греч. слова, означающего рулевой, управляющий) - реакционная лженаука, возникшая в США после второй мировой войны и получившая широкое распространение и в других капиталистических странах; форма современного механицизма. Приверженцы кибернетики определяют её как универсальную науку о связях и коммуникациях в технике, в живых существах и общественной жизни, о "всеобщей организации" и управлении всеми процессами в природе и обществе. Тем самым кибернетика отождествляет механические, биологические и социальные взаимосвязи и закономерности. Как всякая механистическая теория, кибернетика отрицает качественное своеобразие закономерностей различных форм существования и развития материи, сводя их к механическим закономерностям. Кибернетика возникла на основе современного развития электроники, в особенности новейших скоростных счётных машин, автоматики и телемеханики. В отличие от старого механицизма XVII-XVIII вв. кибернетика рассматривает психофизиологические и социальные явления по аналогии не с простейшими механизмами, а с электронными машинами и приборами, отождествляя работу головного мозга с работой счётной машины, а общественную жизнь - с системой электро- и радиокоммуникаций. По существу своему кибернетика направлена против материалистической диалектики, современной научной физиологии, обоснованной Ivan Pavlov, и марксистского, научного понимания законов общественной жизни. Эта механистическая метафизическая лженаука отлично уживается с идеализмом в философии, психологии, социологии.

Кибернетика ярко выражает одну из основных черт буржуазного мировоззрения - его бесчеловечность, стремление превратить трудящихся в придаток машины, в орудие производства и орудие войны. Вместе с тем для кибернетики характерна империалистическая утопия - заменить живого, мыслящего, борющегося за свои интересы человека машиной как в производстве, так и на войне. Поджигатели новой мировой войны используют кибернетику в своих грязных практических делах. Под прикрытием пропаганды кибернетики в странах империализма происходит привлечение учёных самых различных специальностей для разработки новых приёмов массового истребления людей - электронного, телемеханического, автоматического оружия, конструирование и производство которого превратилось в крупную отрасль военной промышленности капиталистических стран. Кибернетика является, таким образом, не только идеологическим оружием империалистической реакции, но и средством осуществления её агрессивных военных планов.

Semiotics[edit]

Tartu school. Yuri Lotman Юрий Михайлович Лотман, structural poetics

Page move[edit]

Why was this page moved? Is it only supposed to be about suppressed research? Shouldn't it talk about the research that went along smoothly as well? Everyking 20:42, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

  • Personally, I think the best solution would be something like the German version of this, which is just "Science in the Soviet Union," which is more general than just "research" (which is an odd construction in my opinion). A good article on science in the USSR would take into account not only those sciences labeled as bourgeosie (i.e. cybernetics and agronomy) but also talk about those incidences effects on other disciplines (i.e. the reaction of chemists and chemistry to the threat of Lysenkoism in biology). --Fastfission 05:25, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • This article talks only about suppressed research. Therefore I renamed it. The article "Research... " will be enormous, you have to agree. I even wouldn't know where to start. This is the whole project, comparable to the world R&D. I don't want even touch it. And the more, I don't want to have it skewed from the very beginning. Mikkalai 06:24, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • If someone can start, e.g., with translating the German version, it would be great. Mikkalai 06:25, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • One need not translate the entire German version; the narrative (as best as I can tell with my fractured German) is very similar to a general history of science in the Soviet Union, and need not be the definitive history of each discipline (i.e. Lysenkoism has its own page, one could imagine Cybernetics in the Soviet Union being an interesting article). If I had the time to write the article, here is the outline I would use:
    • Initial pact between scientists and Lenin in the early days, on the importance of science and science working for the state
    • Funding mechanisms for science directed entirely through the state
    • Early-Soviet funding of pre-Revolutionary scientists who had prestige even if they didn't agree with Soviet policies (Pavlov)
    • Stalin's rise to power and the imposition of harsh philosophical codes onto science
    • Dialetical materialism as the Soviet philosophy of science
    • Emphasis on the "practicality" of science/anti-theoretical attacks which are seen in an extreme form in Lysenkoism but exist in other forms throughout the sciences (chemistry advertises itself as a fully "practical" and "industrial" science after Lysenkoism in order to avoid any problems, for example)
    • A small section on Lysenkoism itself
    • Fears of Lysenkoism and the creation of false "founding father" biographies of past scientists, to avoid being accused of being bourgeoisie
    • Suppressed science (cybernetics, Vygotsky, etc)
    • Soviet coordination and funding of state military technological projects (atomic bomb, rockets)
    • Atomic bomb, espionage, parallelism
    • Sputnik, space program
    • Soviet scientists and dissidence (Sahkarov)
    • Soviet-Western scientific exchanges and tensions
    • Fall of the Soviet Union = political freedom for scientists, but no money for science
Again, I don't really have time to work on this, but that's the general outline (i.e. Loren Graham's, What Have We Learned About Science and Technology from the Russian Experience and Science and Technology in Russia and the Soviet Union) as far as I know it, which is by no means expertise but is something. --Fastfission 06:40, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I copied this into the Research in the Soviet Union sunstub. At least something to start with. Mikkalai 08:11, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

An article Research in the Soviet Union looks so poor compared with Suppressed research in the Soviet Union. It seems, that 1 million of Soviet scientists did nothing there. I really like the majority of articles related to the oviet Union!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! No more comments on these themes from myself in the future. All is up to THEM. Cmapm 22:43, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Redirect[edit]

Talk:Research in the Soviet Union still redirected to here, this seems to be undesirable as there are two separate articles. I will remove the redirect. - FrancisTyers 01:02, 23 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Sociology in the Soviet Union[edit]

I will try to write something on this fascinating subject in the coming weeks. If anybody is interested in that issue, Google looks promising (nice suprise :D).-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  23:36, 29 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Needed: Suppressed research in China[edit]

Perhaps somebody can write on this subject? Sociology, for example, was suppressed there as well, and at least a decade longer than in SU (see Sociology in China, Suppressed_research_in_the_Soviet_Union#Sociology). --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 23:40, 22 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

deletion or improvement ?[edit]

I'm not in favour of the deletion of this article but now it has references it is important that the content carefully reflects the references.

Graham, for instance, writes: "I am convinced that dialectical materialism has influenced the work of some Soviet scientists, that incertain cases these influences helped them to arrive at views that won them international recognition..."

and on p.10:

"Nonetheless, in the years immediatley after the revolution almost no one thought seriously that the Communist Party's supervision of intellectuals would extend from the realm of political activity to that of scientific theory itself."

On p.6. Graham makes the point that, taking the case of Lysenko, "Nothing in the philosophical system of dialectical materialism lends obvious support to any of Lysenko's views". In other words, the reference to dialecicatl materialism by the regime was entirely spurious.

(Science and philosophy in the Soviet Union)

The crude, Stalinist form of "dialectical materialism" was used merely as a cover for the political suppression of genuine science.Andysoh (talk) 13:29, 20 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Psychology[edit]

Vygotsky's psychology was never banned, despite what some authors claim. For this very reason, I am deleting the section on Psychology. --Yasya (talk) 21:56, 11 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

One-sided take on Soviet science[edit]

First off, I want to clear up the idea that I'm in any way defending historic Soviet science policy. But at the same time, this article presents a kind of one-sided take on the history of science in the Soviet Union. I realize the article is about repression of science in the Soviet Union, but if one were to go by this article, one would not realize there were scientists like Alexander Oparin, Pyotr Kapitsa, and several other Nobel laureates who made important contributions to world science. In some cases, their work was impeded by the authorities (notably Oparin, who basically spent the Stalin period quietly towing the Lysenkoist line) while others managed to remain in official favor (Kapista even managed to have Stalin take his side in a conflict with Beria).

This article is several times longer than Science and technology in the Soviet Union and poorly integrated with it. My first instinct would be to merge the two, but on thinking about this, I think what would be better would be to build that article up, possibly with some material from this article, and have a subsection on "Suppression on research" which would summarize this article and have a link to it at the beginning. What is needed in this article is more on the relationship between official science and suppressed research and some larger historical context, rather than just a list of examples of research that was repressed. Translation of additional material from the corresponding Russian Wikipedia article would probably flesh it out too. Peter G Werner (talk) 01:31, 3 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • Please contribute to Science and technology in the Soviet Union.
  • The article Universities has been censored, paragraphs about Nazi and Soviet Universities removed. Xx236 (talk) 10:14, 21 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Pyotr Kapitsa worked several years at home. I understand it's better to work at home than in a Sharashka but scientists don't need Joseph Stalin nor Soviet Union to work at home.Xx236 (talk) 10:38, 21 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • The article quotes 28 references, which makes it rather above standard. Still at least 36 templates demand additional sources. Wikipedia isn't a shop, in which slaves work and white masters criticize and punish the slaves. The Russian article quotes many sources.Xx236 (talk) 10:55, 21 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • The article "Soviet university" has been removed. The article described Soviet type universities in and around the SU.
  • Supressed research in Communist Poland should be written, the same for any "socialist" country.Xx236 (talk) 11:04, 21 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Sharashka[edit]

This article doesn't link Sharashka. Xx236 (talk) 12:05, 21 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

History[edit]

The History paragraph is too short to explain the problem. It doesn't mention continuous rewriting of the history, as in 1994 by Orwell. Books were destroied or rewritten, eg. Beria article was to be replaced, Stalin replaced Trotsky during the revolution, phtographs were corrected.Xx236 (talk) 11:03, 22 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified[edit]

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Move[edit]

I moved the page for two reasons: (a) this is a part of template about political repression in the USSR, and (b) it was not just censorship, but assassinations (e.g. Nikolai Koltsov), arrests, blacklisting to deprive researchers of any decent job, sending people to Gulag (e.g. Nikolay Timofeev-Ressovsky), etc. My very best wishes (talk) 00:13, 11 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Other titles are possible and reasonable. French WP: "Repression of scientific research in the Soviet Union". Ruwiki: "Ideological control in Soviet science". But not censorship. Or "Ideological repression of Soviet science". "Ideological" is a little problematic, because a lot of that (like biology) did not contradict Marxism, Leninism, etc. In biology that was mostly related to the person of Lysenko; there was nothing ideological in genetics. They only used "Marxist" phraseology to justify the campaigns. My very best wishes (talk) 03:33, 11 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
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